More Than Nothing
by Qalets
Summary: Of tea and conversation. Post Reichenbach. Two post-ex-best-friends dissect, disassemble, explain, articulate, confuse and connect.
1. Chapter 1

**More than Nothing**

Title is taken from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll:

_""Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly._

_"I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone, "so I can't take more."_

_"You mean you can't take less," said the Hatter: "it's very easy to take more than nothing.""_

* * *

**Chapter One**

It had become a habit. Cupboard. Mugs. Two of them. Pull them from the shelf and set them on the side, his hands steady.

Teabags. Two – one for each mug.

Flick off the kettle. The automatic shut off had broken, some time ago, he should get that fixed. Without manual intervention it would continue to boil in perpetuity, steam rising from the spout and pooling upward against the underside of the cupboard above.

Water on teabag. The mug on the left. Stir. The teaspoon is basically clean, retrieved from the drawer, a shadow of hard London water not rubbed completely from the bowl.

Fish out bag, abandon in haphazard pile against the side of the sink.

Retrieve milk from fridge. Pour. Stir again.

Drag across the sugar bowl from its position against the wall. Stare at it for a moment.

Sigh.

Push it back.

Rescue teabag from the mug on the right. Cowering against the bottom, untouched. Still dry. Drop the bag back into the box. Lift the mug from the side and slide it back against its mates in the cupboard. Until next time.

He should remember that making tea is now only a one mug process.

Two if you count John himself.

Though he knows he'll only do it exactly the same way next time.

* * *

It's a quiet Tuesday night in Baker Street. Not that any night is loud any longer. He is still here. Just him. Only one seat sits in the centre of the room now, facing the shadow where a second used to be. He moved it some time ago. That chair. It sits in what he now strongly remembers to refer to as "the downstairs" bedroom. Ownerless. As if it's always been.

In the shadow of where that chair no longer rests he's moved the coffee table, left front leg a bit dodgy from years of misuse, so he can rest his tea there. Amongst the papers and his laptop: glowing faintly against the growing shadows of the evening.

Putting it all in order had seemed like a good idea all those weeks ago, when he'd started to sift through the objects in the flat, the books and the papers and the notes, sheet after sheet of sloped handwriting that seems to sing with personality: here it is careful, structured; lines following ordered steps of logic, turn it over and find wild ideas, scribbled haphazardly in margins and pushed up against other text – as if it has no real idea of personal boundaries.

Sometimes he looks those pages and has to close his eyes against the memories.

He's always doing that.

He'd tried moving away. At first. Right after it happened. This place was too painful for him then. The memories suffocating: an empty chair, an un-stepped-on coffee table, the wonky yellow face with the gaps in his smile. _Bored_.

Two mugs for tea on the countertop.

But the blank box of a bedsit he'd found in Islington had been too painful for him too.

He'd tried working through it. Long hours of non-descript faces and standard ailments. Summer colds and winter burns. Allergies. Sprained ankles. STDs. He became the best locum a surgery could ask for – available any time, day and night. He'd stopped sleeping. It seems his flatmate wasn't the only one with a talent for consciousness.

He found new ways to fill his time. He took up running. Not short, dramatic sprints like his days from the training barracks. But long, time-consuming, lung-burning slogs. Drowning pain in lactic acid as his eyes watched battered trainers slapping the pavement below him. Until the moment he'd look up from the tarmac and see the looming end of a familiar street and he'd realise that his tired feet and his tired lungs and his tired mind had brought him here. Here again. Every time.

He'd given in. Eventually.

Mrs Hudson's voice on the phone had been delighted:

_No, no, it's just a surprise. So lovely to hear from you dear._

_Don't be silly, no need to apologise, I understand how it is..._

_Well, of course the room is still available._

_I left it just as it was._

_Why? Well it didn't seem to be my place now,_

_Well of course I don't need the rent; his brother still sends the cheques. 2__nd__ Tuesday. Every month._

_Tell you the truth I thought I might enjoy the quiet, but well… _

_You must miss him._

_No, sorry, of course dear, tomorrow will be fine._

He'd hung up with a lump in his throat.

Back to the notes, and the memories. His tea half-drunk by the time he surfaces from them: consumed automatically from the mug in his left hand while his right holds on to the past. _This is my note._

A noise downstairs. He pauses, mug in hand. Key in the lock, front door swinging open. Feet on the hallway floor.

Mrs Hudson must be home. She'd been with her sister for a few days.

_Country air, cups of tea with a view, you know dear, some time away from Baker Street. It'll do me good. Do you good to get out a bit too. Since you've been back I've barely seen you. Working so hard. All those papers. Oh John, the mess you've made. Don't they need you at the surgery any more dear? Are you eating? I'll make you some tea shall I? Just this once mind…_

No doubt she'll leave her bags and head straight upstairs to tell him she's back. He glances around the room, suddenly aware of the state if it. Perhaps he should tidy before she sees. The books and the papers and the notes. His laptop left haphazardly half open amongst it all, as if he will ever really begin to start committing these words to keyboard. He sets his mug down in the only available three inch square of space on the table top, finding his way to his feet. He can hear her steps on the stairs. Climbing slowly. Perhaps she's carrying something. It sounds heavy. He casts around again, but feels unsure where to start. He can't tidy untold weeks of hermit-living in seconds. Perhaps he can clear some of these plates. Jesus, he really has let the place go. Memories don't mind mess.

In retrospect it's unfortunate that he's holding crockery when Mrs Hudson opens the door. In retrospect it's unusual that she hasn't already called out to him from the landing, voice high and sing-song: _It's only me. _ In retrospect it's strange that the sound of her steps on the floorboards is much heavier than her usual gait. Stronger. Slower. Firm. These steps are certainly not executed in heels.

In retrospect it's really quite obvious that when the door swings open the figure it reveals isn't Mrs Hudson.

A stunned silence.

"Hello John"

* * *

He drops the plates.

Of course he does. It's what one does in such a situation. A mime. A mimicry. An external physical representation of an internally incapacitating emotion. Or just the complete ignorance that the world continues to move on around you, expecting you to carry out your small purpose within it. Like holding crockery. Or breathing.

"Sherlock," He whispers.

One word.

He hasn't spoken it out loud in what feels like a lifetime. Hasn't needed to. It's always there. Balanced on the tip of his proverbial tongue. To others it is always "him" or "he". When he's alone: "you". When he speaks to you. When his memories speak to him and he feels he should reply.

"You're not Mrs Hudson,"

"No, John"

Sherlock.

Just standing there. In the doorway. All long coat and cheekbones and turned up collar. A blank expression. Unreadable. No. Patient. There was no chastising for stating the obvious.

"You're…" John starts again. Unable to form the words he wants to say. The external physical representations of an internally incapacitating emotion: "You're not dead."

A faint twitch of the right corner of Sherlock's mouth. "No, John"

Silence.

John doesn't know what to do. Laugh? Cry? Fall to the floor and rend his clothes? Move forward and touch him? Hit him? Move away and pretend this hasn't upset his entire world? Make him tea? Stand and stare in total silence for a length of time that should have made the other man uncomfortable, but hasn't, because this is Sherlock Holmes, who if he hasn't made half a dozen people uncomfortable before lunch it's been a good day?

Hadn't.

Hadn't, not hasn't. Remember the past tense John. Sherlock is dead.

You must keep reminding yourself of that.

Sherlock is dead and he is standing in the doorway. Still patient. Waiting.

Waiting for you to laugh. To cry. To fall to the floor and rend your clothes.

Sherlock is alive.

Sherlock isn't past tense. He's present.

Future tense.

Tense.

Perhaps that tea would be a good idea.

Minutes pass. They watch one another, seven feet of space between them. Books and papers and notes between them, broken crockery and Mrs Hudson's nice wood floor between them. Memories between them. Years. Lost years. Death.

"What…" John speaks, finally. That internal world splitting apart silently behind his eyes. All that pain. "What are you doing here?"

"It's over." Obvious. Sherlock's words are obvious. His tone: obvious.

"What's over?"

"The reason I had to go away."

"Go away?"

"Yes."

"You didn't go away,"

Silence.

"You fell. You…" John continues, eyes wide "You died."

"It was necessary."

"It was necessary to die?"

There's a subtle shift in that blank gaze then. Pale eyes darting away from an accusatory stare, down. To the right. Was that a marker for a lie? John can't remember.

"Yes."

John still doesn't know what to do. What to feel. Anger? Joy? Confusion? Perhaps a dumb stare will suffice. Dumb. Dumb in every sense of the word.

"There was a threat to your life," Sherlock again. He hasn't moved. Feet pressed firmly to the ground, standing in the doorway. Alive.

"I thought there was always some kind of threat to my life?"

"This one was serious,"

"And the others were some kind of a joke?" John's voice is louder than he expected.

"Don't be stupid John."

A huff of a laugh: "I don't need you to tell me I'm stupid."

"You're not stupid."

"You just said I was," Slowly John can feel himself falling from that delicately balanced knife edge of shock, and into something like hysteria.

"Generally."

"What?"

"You're not stupid generally."

"Just specifically?" The volume of John's voice is still rising. He can't stop it.

"Stop being ridiculous."

"Ridiculous?" Louder, ""I'm being ridiculous?!"

"I…" Sherlock starts, John won't let him.

"What's ridiculous is you standing there telling me I'm being ridiculous! You're dead! I'm being insulted by a dead man,"

"John…"

"You can't just stand there being dead Sherlock. Come in." John finds himself gesturing wildly at the doorway. "Come in out of the hallway. Dead men should always insult you from inside the house don't you think?"

"John,"

John stops. Suddenly. The velvet sound of his own name finally permeating the mania.

He has to close his eyes against the memories.

For a long stilling moment he contemplates the inside of his eyelids. A deep breath. Another. Perhaps when he opens his eyes the doorway will be empty again. Perhaps this is a dream. He will have fallen asleep, _working so hard. All those papers._ He will have fallen asleep and dreamt of that voice saying his name.

John opens his eyes.

Sherlock is still there. Still patient. Still watching. What they call a fixed gaze. Pupils fixed and dilated. A dead man's stare.

"I'm sorry." Sherlock says.

* * *

A pause. Moments frozen in amber. Preserved.

Finally John exhales, a huff of air:

"I've not heard that from you very often,"

"I mean it."

Another stiff pause. They contemplate each other.

Slowly, gradually, John finds the strength to step sideways and ease himself back into the chair he vacated a lifetime of eleven minutes ago. In that time before. The time when Sherlock was dead.

He drops his head into his hands: clutched before his mouth in an unconsciously desperate imitation of a pose he'd seen so many times in his flatmate.

Minutes pass. A lifetime.

The creak of a footstep in the doorway. John's head snaps up.

"Don't…" He cautions. Sherlock freezes in the headlights of John's gaze, one step further into the room, "Just…" John continues, "…don't."

"Really, I'm not going to stand in the doorway all n…"

"You'll stand wherever I sodding well tell you!" Anger. There it is. It draws him up. Off the seat. Back onto his feet.

"You died Sherlock!" John's voice is too loud. Again. "You died! You fell and you died. I should know. I was there!"

"…that was necessary…

"You've already said that!"

"No, I said that my death was necessary…"

"Now we're arguing semantics?" John's hands are in fists at his sides. "You died!"

"You've already said that."

"It's an important point!"

"So is mine,"" Sherlock is frustratingly calm. "It was necessary that I died, it was necessary that you watched me,"

"'_It was necessary that you watched me_'" John mimics, "Do you have any idea what those words mean?!"

Sherlock's gaze is level. John continues,

"Do you have any idea what that did to me? I watched my best friend fall off a roof. A roof for Pete's sake. No. No, not fall. Jump. Jump Sherlock. You. Jumped. Off a roof. In front of me. Your best friend…"

"I…" Sherlock begins, again John doesn't let him continue.

"'_Do this, for me_" you said. You had no idea!"

"John,"

"What that was, what you were asking…"

"John,"

"And now, now, well you're alive. And it was '_necessary'_?!"

"If you'd let me explain,"

"No!" John's anger feels like a physical being in the room. Standing between them. A yawning space: six feet and books and papers and notes and Mrs Hudson's nice wood floor and rage.

"You died, Sherlock. You. Were. Dead. I watched that. My best friend."

There's a long pause.

"I'm sorry." Sherlock speaks again.

John has to tear his eyes from him. "You already said that."

* * *

John's hands on the back of his own head. Turn around. Calm.

Look to the ceiling. Shouldn't this be joyous? How often has he thought of this? He even asked for it once. Right out loud. Standing next to his gravestone, your gravestone.

"We had a funeral for you." John tells the hairline crack in the corner of the ceiling.

"It is customary,"

"Lestrade said some nice things. So did Mrs Hudson."

"Yes,"

"You were there?"

A silent affirmation from behind him. John continues: "Of course you were there."

"You didn't speak," Sherlock's accusation.

"They asked me to. I couldn't."

"You couldn't?"

"Find the words."

"You're a writer."

"I'm a doctor."

"You're a blogger." Sherlock supplies.

"How did I begin to explain you to them?" John asks, away from him.

"Them?"

"Friends, acquaintances. Mrs Hudson. Lestrade."

"You wouldn't have needed to explain me to them. They know me."

"Does anyone really know you Sherlock?" John asks,

"You do."

"I thought I did."

"You did."

"I thought I came close once. Then you jumped off a roof."

"Ah."

"You hit the pavement and then got right back up and attended your own funeral."

"Wouldn't you?" Sherlock asks,

"Wouldn't I what?"

"Go to your funeral." There's a smirk in Sherlock's voice.

"Seriously. You're not making a joke out of this. Not... Not this. Not yet."

John stares away from him. Away from the doorway. Toward the kitchen.

"I need a cup of tea."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Cupboard. Mugs. Two of them.

Teabags. Kettle. Water. Teaspoon.

Sugarbowl.

Stop.

Pick up the second mug. Hurl it at the far wall.

The sound of broken crockery lost in a shout of rage.

The neighbours will hear. Mrs Hudson, downstairs. She's with her sister.

Did he plan it that way?

Of course he did.

A thought occurs; John whirls around and back into the living room:

"Did Mrs Hudson know?"

Sherlock has made no attempt to follow him. Recognised John's enforced time out. He still stands by the doorway, a little further into the room. Coat and cheekbones and collar. Hands in pockets. A red scarf.

"No."

It bothers John that he didn't know Sherlock owned a red scarf.

"Ok then,"

John retreats. Back to his tea on the countertop. Back to the broken shards of a mug across the floor. He realises that Sherlock didn't mention this. As if shouts and breakages and thoughts of Mrs Hudson are always linked.

Well they probably are. Sherlock can follow John's thought processes better than he can.

"If you're sticking around for a while we might need some new crockery," John says as he makes his way back into the sitting room, tea in hand.

"I thought we weren't making jokes?" Sherlock replies.

"You aren't."

"You aren't getting me a cup."

"It's on the floor."

"Oh."

John sits:

"I moved your chair."

"I'd noticed."

"If you want to sit you'll have to use the sofa."

"I'll stand."

"Planning your escape route?"

"The thought had occurred."

"That last mug was a practise shot," John raises his cup to Sherlock in a mockery of a toast.

"That one is full." Sherlock nods toward it.

"More damaging."

"Slower trajectory. Harder to aim." Sherlock's voice is smooth. "Still best to be prepared."

"I'm not going to hurt you."

"No, I didn't think you would."

"Though I think you have some explaining to do."

"I'm not sure where to start."

"Me either." John pauses "Except for the shouting obviously."

"Obviously."

"I'm not sure it's quite out of my system yet, just as a warning."

"I didn't presume for a moment that it was."

Another pause.

John speaks: "Where have you been?"

"Close" Sherlock answers cryptically. "Most of the time at least. At first, I was away. Germany. For a month or two. But that didn't take long. I came back as soon as I was able."

"Back to London, or back to…" He wants to say 'me' but the internal censors are having none of that "…here?"

"Both." If Sherlock notices the crude semantics of the question he doesn't mention it.

"So you've been in London."

"Yes."

"All this time?"

"Yes, close by as much as I could be."

"But it's been…"

"Too long." Sherlock cuts him off. "Longer than I'd hoped."

"Shorter than most people are dead for."

"Quite."

"So the homeless network?"

"Yes, among other people. Safehouses. Squats"

"Mycroft knew." John slots a few pieces together in his mind.

"Yes."

"So which of you was it that deemed this was necessary?"

"We both did."

"That might be the first time you've agreed on anything."

"I wasn't happy about it."

A loaded pause.

"About agreeing, or…?" John asks.

"Any of it."

This time the quiet lasts longer. Five feet of space between them. Books and papers and notes and Mrs Hudson's nice wood floor and secrets. Lies. Agreements.

"So how did you…?" John asks finally. Such an enormous question, asked in such little words.

"Misdirection John." Sherlock cuts in,

"I don't…"

"Seeing what your mind wants you to see."

"I didn't want to see that."

"No,"

"You were bleeding…"

"Not my blood." Sherlock's voice is impassive; tired with standing still he has begun to pace, slowly backward and forward. Not coming any closer, not retreating. Three steps toward the window, three steps away.

"Your pulse…"

"Not my body."

"Molly, she…"

"Counted." Sherlock finishes for him. Not what John was about to say.

"She knew?"

"She knew."

"That explains a lot."

Sherlock turns his pale gaze on him. Eyes narrowed in confusion. "But we've barely scratched the surface."

John, mug to lips, feels suddenly rooted to the spot. "I meant about Molly," He forces himself to sip.

"Oh."

"She's barely spoken a word to me since… well since… then."

"You've tried?" Sherlock asks, stilling again.

"Tried what?"

"Speaking to her?"

"Well," John hesitates. "No," Sets his mug down on the table. On papers this time. "But…"

"You've let people drift away."

"It's been hard." A pause, Sherlock's gaze. "Hard to keep up. With them. When…"

Sherlock's face urges him to go on.

"Well, it's been hard." John continues. "Everything has."

A weighted pause.

"How did you know? That I've let people…" John asks, swallowing. "Something in the way I hold my tea?"

Sherlock returns to his pacing.

"All I deduced from that tea is that it would be an ineffective weapon," He tosses over his shoulder.

"You underestimate my aim."

"I'll never underestimate your aim."

"You haven't answered my question." John.

Sherlock still isn't looking at him.

"You just told me you were close by." John clarifies,

"Yes,"

"How close by?"

The great Sherlock Holmes. Reduced to silence.

"You were watching me?" John continues.

"Yes."

A long pause. Again John doesn't know what to feel. Except his own disbelief. He heaves in a breath. Forcing a sloped smile.

"Well I'm not sure whether to be flattered, or…"

Another pause.

"You were there, at your funeral." John continues "You were there after. At your grave…"

"'_The most human, human being_'" Sherlock repeats.

John blinks at his own words spoken back to him in a velvet voice. The voice of his dreams. He stares for a moment.

"Like I said. Not a writer." John says haltingly.

"Sentiment."

"Yes."

And the great John Watson, reduced to one word answers. But if he had to say, if he had to describe, that one word of Sherlock's, normally spat out in disgust, somehow didn't seem that way.

"It's been hard." John continues. Doesn't expect an answer, Sherlock is in the "away" portion of his pace. "All of it. Watching you fall. Carrying on. Hearing what people said."

"You believed in me."

"You've been reading the papers."

"When do I not?"

"'_I believe in Sherlock Holmes_'"

"Ridiculous."

"You have a following."

"I've always had a following."

"Not like this. It's like a cult."

"I don't need a cult."

"No one needs a cult."

A stop.

"You believed in Sherlock Holmes." Sherlock wonders aloud.

"I believed in you."

"Believed in me." Sherlock clarifies, as if the two thoughts were separate.

"I always believed in you."

"Even after I said…"

"Even after you jumped off a building." John corrects.

Sherlock is in the "toward" section of his pace, John meets his gaze and holds it, continuing:

"Even when you came back."

They fall quiet.

The turn in Sherlock's pacing breaks the moment.

John speaks: "I don't need to believe in you anymore."

"Because I came back?"

"Because they cleared your name."

"Yes."

"Lestrade, and the yarders. Turns out that cracks appear in a story pretty quickly if the person telling it disappears rather spectacularly overnight."

"He's dead."

Sherlock's voice seems to suck all the air from the room.

"He's dead?" John clarifies.

"He died on the rooftop of Bart's,"

"You mean…?"

"He died, I lived."

"You…?"

"He killed himself." Sherlock answers the question John hadn't been able to answer. Hadn't known he was going to ask. "He made it necessary."

"That he should die?"

"That I should die." Sherlock's pacing seems to have stepped up a beat.

"But you didn't?"

"I didn't."

"He did?"

"Keep up John."

"So, he made it necessary that you die? But not him?"

"Yes."

"But the opposite happened."

"Only he and I knew that."

"You,"

"What?"

"Only you knew that. He was dead."

"Yes. I suppose"

"But because he was dead it was necessary that you died?"

"Yes." Sherlock's tone is finally relieved. John is catching on.

"And it was necessary that I watch?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"It was necessary that you believed."

"Believed in you?"

"No. Believed that I was dead."

"I definitely believed that."

"Did you?" Sherlock asks suddenly. Whirling to face him with a desperation that renders John speechless for a moment.

"Yes." John finally strangles out. Wanted it to be true: No. Understood it: No. Believed his own two eyes: Yes.

"You asked me." Sherlock has become very still, the nervous tension that fuelled his pacing suddenly lost. "That day. You asked me. Not to be."

"By your grave? Yes."

"Why?"

There's a pause as John's eyes widen against the question. Posed in innocence. Asking so much.

"Why?" John repeats. "Why did I ask you to stop being dead? Which is, by the way, the first and only time you've actually done what I said when I asked you to 'stop it'?"

"Yes," Velvet smooth. "Why?"

"Because I was hurting Sherlock." A sigh. John is feeling too much, "Because you were gone and I was hurting. It hurt. I didn't think you could hear me."

Silence.

Sherlock looks away. Out the window. Darkness has fallen. John can see it on his face. That bright London darkness, a tungsten glow across his features.

"You thought," John continues. "You thought I knew…"

"I thought you suspected." Sherlock says out toward the street.

"I didn't let myself believe. Not really. I saw you. You fell."

"Yes."

They fall quiet.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"I've seen a lot of people die," John breaks the silence. Four feet and books and papers and notes and Mrs Hudson's nice wood floor and experience.

"More than I should probably admit to you, as a doctor I mean." John continues. "Certainly more than my fair share."

Sherlock has stilled, completely. No more pacing. Instead he's found the arm of the sofa. Perched there.

John goes on. "What I'm trying to say is; I know what death looks like. And it was you. Lying there. On the pavement. Covered in blood. I saw that. Do you have any idea how often I see that?"

John's voice seems to continue speaking well after he wishes he could keep the thoughts back.

Sherlock swallows. He's heard it. Stored it away.

"Exactly John."

"Exactly?"

"You know what death looks like. You saw what you expected to see."

"You're right I did. A man falls off a roof…"

"Jumps."

"Yes." John's word is slightly strangled. Trust Sherlock to correct this mistake. "Yes, jumps." John sighs, "He's going to look a certain way when that jump is over."

"Pavement. Blood"

"Yes."

"Cause and effect."

"Yes."

"So knowing what you know about the likely implications on a human body of hitting a pavement from a distance of let's say, thirty feet, you would, as a doctor, be able to give me a pretty accurate description of injuries likely to be sustained in such a circumstance."

"Did you always talk like that?" John asks suddenly.

"Yes." Sherlock's reply is instant; his face a picture of confusion. "Why?"

"Of course. I'd forgotten."

"You had?"

"It seems so." A pause, John wets his lips, "Yes."

A pause as Sherlock considers the word, "Yes, what?" He asks finally.

"The answer to your ridiculously worded question: Yes. Yes I know the likely effects of a pavement on a body thrown at it from a distance of approximately thirty feet."

"So your mind would be able to supply those details. Even if they weren't present."

"It's certainly supplying those details right now."

"Blood. Pavement. Yes, John. Exactly."

"I can imagine them. But I can't see them."

"But what if your mind were particularly susceptible? To see those things it imagined." The tempo of Sherlock's words seems to be speeding up.

"You mean a dream?" John asks,

"A waking one perhaps." Sherlock counters quickly,

"Hallucination? A drug then? In the sugar."

"It was in the air,"

"Yes, but you thought it was in the sugar."

"Yes, nevermind that."

"There was a drug in the air?" John comes back to the point.

"No. Not a drug. Something of the same strength. To muddle the mind."

"A blow to the head."

"Yes."

"The cyclist."

"Yes." Sherlock confirms, quicker now.

John's mind is suddenly flooded with the sensation of that blow. The cyclist. Crowding him.

"Misdirection John." Sherlock continues.

"But, the blood."

"Not my blood."

"Molly," John says, tumblers falling.

"Yes."

"I touched you."

"Barely. They wouldn't let you."

"They?" John asks, before his mind supplies the detail: "The people, the bystanders."

"Yes, did you not wonder where they were before?"

"Before?"

"Before I fell." Sherlock is still talking too fast.

"Well, no."

"You weren't thinking about that."

"No."

"You were thinking about the effects a fall like that would have on any normal human body."

"Not a fall."

"A jump" Sherlock confirms quickly.

"I was thinking… that I'd lost you."

"But subconsciously, you were supplying those details."

"I have no idea."

"You were, you saw me fall. Cause…"

"I did,"

"… You saw a body on the pavement. Effect. Blood: supplied. Broken: implied…"

"Stop it." John's voice is quiet.

"It wasn't my body John" Sherlock looks up at him, continues as if he hasn't spoken. "It was a dummy, a decoy, the likely effect to your witnessesed cause."

"Stop it." John repeats.

"You saw what you thought you would. Knew you would."

"Stop it." Again.

"I made you see what you knew you would."

"Stop it!" John stands.

Sherlock's open mouth freezes.

"Stop it!" John's voice is louder. Anger again. "Stop that. Stop talking about it as if it's something clever that you did Sherlock! The "cause and effect", the details. The little things that made me think what I wanted to believe. I didn't want to believe that Sherlock! I didn't want to believe the person that meant the most to me in the world had done that. Done that to himself!"

Sherlock can only sit and stare.

"Stop talking like you're not really hearing what I'm saying Sherlock. '_Look at me John, look at how clever I am, look at how I managed to pull it off_' Details. Details. Details." John's breath is fast again. "I don't want the details Sherlock. I want you to hear what I'm saying to you: I. Thought. I. Had. Lost. You."

His anger is freeing. Sherlock blinks up at him.

"Your grief made that possible John."

John swallows: "That might be one of the coldest things you've ever said to me."

"You were upset. A blow to the head. Suggestible."

"I saw it because I cared?"

"You believed in me."

"Believed in you? Or believed you were dead?"

"Both." Sherlock confirms.

"I'm not sure where one starts and the other finishes anymore."

"They were always the same." Sherlock.

John sits again. Time passes.

"You tried to stop me believing in you."

"Yes."

"Tried to tell me you were a fraud."

"Yes."

"Did you think that by doing that I wouldn't believe you were really dead? I wouldn't care enough, to see, what I did?"

"I'm not sure." Sherlock meets his eyes. Seemingly for the first time in hours.

"Did you really think it would work that way?" John asks.

Sherlock's gaze shifts: "I'm not sure."

"Were you trying to protect me?"

Sherlock's repetition seems to hang in the air, unsaid. "I thought it would serve a purpose."

"What would?"

"Having you believe that of me. That I was a fraud."

"What purpose?"

"That if people could see you were against me, you'd be safe."

"So it was to protect me?" John asks

"Of course,"

"From other people? Not from you."

"I've never been very good at protecting you from me."

"No," And for some bizarre reason John finds himself smiling at that. "No, you haven't."

"You've not made it very easy for me."

"I guess I haven't."

Sherlock stands, slowly, an air of something to say:

"John, I…" His voice is low again,

"If you're going to tell me more details I don't think I want to hear them." John cuts him off.

"I don't think I've told you many to add more to."

"You've told me enough. For now."

"John, I…"

"I don't want to talk about details…" The end of John's sentence hangs with the expectations of what else there is to talk about. Three feet, those books, those papers, those notes, Mrs Hudson's nice wood floor and things unspoken.

John continues "I just told you I thought I'd lost you. You accepted that."

"Cause and effect…"

"No," John cuts in, "Not just that. I told you that I see it. Blood and pavement and…" John's voice chokes off slightly.

"Yes."

"…and that it hurts. It hurt. It was hard." A pause, John levels his gaze at him "I told you that. And you didn't even blink."

"I think I probably did."

"Figuratively. Not literally. You didn't react"

"No,"

"You expected that. You expected that I'd feel that way."

"Yes."

"You knew that. It was part of the plan."

"Not really, I…"Sherlock starts, looking lost.

"You knew that and yet you still did that."

"I…"

"You did that to me. Knowing that."

"I underestimated."

"No." John says firmly.

"No?"

"No, you didn't. You didn't underestimate anything. You never do. You knew exactly what you were doing."

"I…" Sherlock can't find any words of defence.

"You don't underestimate me. You know me." John continues. "You _knew_ what you were doing. You knew what you were doing when you sent me to Mrs Hudson. You knew I'd go. You knew what you were doing when you kissed me. You knew what you were doing when you asked me to watch as you threw yourself off a building in some… in some… necessity."

His thoughts trail away.

Sherlock takes another step forward. John puts up his hands:

"Don't." John says, the same caution from earlier. "Don't" He scrubs his hands back over his eyes, feeling faintly like a wild animal that Sherlock is slowly creeping up on, pausing at each stage to build the trust necessary for another step. Is he still being trained?

"I did know what I was doing when I kissed you." Sherlock's voice is calm. Poised somewhere above John's covered eyes.

He uncovers them, looks up: "It was you. All you. It was 3am, I was…"

"Asleep, yes."

"You climbed into bed with me."

"Yes." Sherlock says blankly, as if confirming his drinks order.

"Flatmates don't do that."

"No, I…"

"Don't tell me it was some sort of experiment."

"It wasn't…"

"And all the other times? Expanding the dataset?"

"You're putting words in my mouth,"

"Believing what I want to believe?" John asks, looping around.

"At the moment, yes, you won't let me explain."

"You have explained. Cause and effect right?" John is lost. "Cause: me, effect: you."

"John,"

"Or is it the other way around? I'm not sure I can understand this anymore. People don't do that. People don't. You do. Cause: you. Effect: I don't believe anything you do any more."

"You said you believed in me."

"I believed you weren't a fraud. I believed you fell off a roof."

"Jumped," Sherlock corrects again.

"Jumped."

"But you didn't believe me when I kissed you."

There is actual hurt in Sherlock's face as he says this.

It brings John up short.

"How could I?" John asks. "We never…" He blinks, "We never spoke about it."

"I'm not good at that."

"I never knew," A stop. "When to expect. Whether I was just something to pass the time between cases."

"You were."

"You… What?"

"You interest me John."

"You just admitted I was just there to pass the time."

"That was, that wasn't… No. That wasn't what I meant."

"It wasn't?"

"Cases are interesting. You are interesting. I don't find many things interesting."

"So I was to keep you from getting bored?"

"No, I," Sherlock's turn to put his hand across his eyes. "I'm not good at this."

"Get good!" John's voice is louder.

"You are important John."

"So important, you died?"

"What? No." Sherlock is taken aback. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Stop calling me ridiculous!" Louder again.

"They aren't linked."

"How can they not be linked? You kissed me. You got into bed with me. More than once. We, we…" John comes to a halt in front of his own lack of words.

"I meant it," Sherlock assures.

"I thought," John can't quite believe his voice can be uttering these things. To a dead man. "I thought, you… I mean, I…"

"Yes?"

John closes his eyes, answers from behind dark lids "I thought, perhaps, there were feelings."

"There were."

"I thought. Maybe. At the time. But since…"

"Since?"

"Since you died. You had to know how much that was going to hurt, Sherlock. Hurt me."

"Yes."

"But you did it anyway?"

"It was necessary."

"That word again." John sighs. "You have to understand that I'd have questioned it."

"It?"

"That you were able to do that. To me. That you felt anything at all."

"John," Sherlock's voice is a low rumble. Across the space. Across two feet of it and books and papers and notes and Mrs Hudson's nice wood floor, and broken crockery and broken promises.

"Yes?"

"Would it help if I kissed you now?" Sherlock has to know the effect that pitch of voice has on him.

John's eyes snap open:

"No." His word freezes the step Sherlock had been preparing to take forward. "No," Decisive. "God. No."

"I could try and make you understand."

"Just don't touch me, not yet."

"It would explain better than I could…"

"You'll just have to use words Sherlock."

"But…"

"If you tried to touch me right now, I'm pretty sure I'd hit you." John assures him.

"Oh."

"Those cheekbones couldn't handle it."

"They have before."

"That time I avoided them."

"And she called you on it."

"She could always be trusted to say things out loud." John assures him.

"We say things out loud."

"Not the important things."

"The important things don't need to be said out loud."

"Some do."

"Like I love you?"

"Yes, like that." John doesn't miss a beat.

"Would it have made it easier?"

"What?"

"If I'd said that?" Sherlock asks.

"Before…. Before you…?" It's as if they each only have a certain quota of words on this night. John is running out of his.

"Would it have made it any easier if I'd said those things, out loud, before I died?"

John has to take a moment to think.

"Perhaps."

"I thought not." Sherlock has made his own deduction of John's tone.

"But I would have known."

"But you did know."

"No I didn't." John counters.

"But it was obvious."

"Obvious to you perhaps, we aren't all brilliant consulting detectives."

"But you know now?"

"What?"

"That I love you." Sherlock succeeds in taking that step forward. One foot. Books, papers, notes, wood floors and three little words.

"Don't be ridiculous." John replies.

* * *

_Just a quick note to say hi to the fandom! I just want to thank you for being wonderful; so enthusiastic and so inclusive. These characters have really entered my head and I've enjoyed writing them as much as I've enjoyed watching and reading them!_

_Also setlock note: I didn't want this fic to be about the how but more about the why (as well at the truly spectacular relationship between these two main characters). However the nature of the fic did necessitate I add some of my own conclusions. __**I am desperate to avoid s3 spoilers**__ so cannot confirm or deny the accuracy of any of my theories, but I am aware that some of my readers may actually already know how it was all done – please don't judge me (or tell me!) where I'm wrong!_

_If you do like what you read I generally keep things updated and post ideas, thoughts, snippets and things that inspire me on my tumbr blog. You can find me under "Qalets". I'm a shameful novice at the whole thing – so I'd welcome any hints and tips, ideas, thoughts and everything else you want to send me. Obviously I'm a fanfic writer so I live for feedback, post a review or send me a mail – I'd love to hear what you think._

_Chapters 4 & 5 will be updated next week… With 6 & 7 to follow shortly after._


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Time ticks by. John sitting. Sherlock standing. Close. Patient.

"That does seem to make it worse," John continues.

"You seemed to imply that knowing… that… before. Might have made things better."

"It seems I was wrong."

"You often are."

"Thanks."

"Everyone is." Sherlock says matter-of-factly.

"Wrong?"

"Frequently. People don't know what they want. What is right."

"I know that throwing yourself off a building in front of the person you say you love isn't right."

"It was a necessity. A necessity is always right."

"Of course it isn't."

"How?"

"I can't believe you're even asking that question." John struggles to contain his incredulity.

"I don't know the answer."

"You wouldn't, would you? Wouldn't understand."

"Make me." Sherlock requests.

"It's… It's. How." John looks at him desperately. Where to start. "If it was, as you say, necessary. Then." A blockage, in John's throat. " Suicide Sherlock. Suicide is never right"

"There was no other way."

"There must have been another way."

"I considered them all. I assure you, there was not."

"Then, ok. Then, how you did it."

"It was necessary that you believe."

"It's not like you to repeat yourself Sherlock,"

"You keep making it necessary."

"The repetition? Or the death?"

"This is getting confusing." The roll in Sherlock's eyes is implied.

"It's always been confusing."

"You're trying to argue that what I did was wrong."

"Of course it was wrong." John counters "I didn't think there was any arguing against that."

"I'm trying to make you understand that there is no arguing _for_ it." Sherlock counters.

John sighs, continues:

"How you did it. How you left it. That was wrong." A pause "I didn't know."

"It would have been dangerous if you had known."

"I didn't mean about the 'not being dead' bit Sherlock. Though it might have been nice to know that before now."

"You couldn't."

"No, I'm beginning to understand that. I think. Bizarrely."

"Then what didn't you know?"

"What I was to you."

"You were John." Sherlock states simply.

"That doesn't make any sense."

There's a long pause. One in which John gets the curious sensation of watching the scene from outside himself. Circling around them. Serving and volleying and questioning and explaining and separating and accusing. His head is singing with it.

Sherlock breaks the silence. Voice low: "I'm not dead." A summation.

A pause.

"I believed in you." John's response.

"I hurt you." Sherlock again.

"You love me." John.

"You love me." Sherlock.

"I haven't told you that." John cuts him off.

"Not in so many words."

"They're the kind of words that a person should say."

"But you never have."

"Neither had you." John cuts in.

"Why?" Sherlock ignores him.

"Because I wasn't sure, if I did. If you did."

"I was."

"What?"

"Sure."

A pause. John begins again:

"'_Alone is what I have_' you said that."

"Because I wasn't alone. I was trying to push you away. Your life was in danger."

"I think it's time you explained that to me."

For a long moment Sherlock contemplates him, from a height. Before he steps back:

"Alright," As he speaks he pulls his scarf from his neck, pushes back at his coat so it falls across the arm of the sofa. He is staying.

Sherlock sits.

"Moriarty liked to find the uncomplicated in the complicated." Sherlock begins. "Enough money in the right person's pocket, enough leverage, he could get anything he wanted."

"We know there was no code." John supplies.

"It never existed. It was just bribery. Uncomplicated. Less. Beautiful."

"Bribery certainly isn't beautiful."

Sherlock's eyes flick up to John's:

"He told me once he'd burn the heart out of me."

"I was there."

"That turned out to be uncomplicated too. Three shooters. Three people that counted."

"Mrs Hudson," John thinks for a moment, "Lestrade. Me."

"They were under instructions to kill you, unless they saw me die."

John exhales.

Sherlock continues: "One loophole in that: Moriarty himself could call them off. I could have made him call them off. People are uncomplicated,"

"He stopped you. He killed himself. He wasn't all that uncomplicated."

"He was insane."

"But you, you expected that."

"I'd prepared for if I had to die,"

"How?"

"Molly."

"'_She counted'_"

"She helped me, despite everything. Despite who I was, despite what I did to her."

"People are complicated."

"And you believed in me, despite what I told you, despite the fall." Sherlock keeps looping back around to that thought.

"I'm not complicated."

"You are,"

"I believed that you died. I believed what you wanted me to believe."

"Because you loved me. That's not uncomplicated."

John sighs, suddenly aware of how long they must have been having this conversation. This dark room: the streetlight through the window and the slow glow from the lamp beside the sofa, throwing half of Sherlock's face into shadow. Was the world still going on untouched outside? Were people still laughing and drinking and talking and working, despite the fact that Sherlock fell, and that he returned?

"But why now?" John asks.

"Because it's over."

"You said that," A pause, "God, you said that hours ago now."

"Moriarty didn't work alone."

"You had to find the people he was working with."

"Death was the easiest place to do that."

"I could have helped."

John's thoughts: spoken aloud. His internal monologue blown up and painted in cursive script across the walls of this room. This flat.

"You didn't let me help you," John continues. "If I'd known..."

"No." Sherlock says "Your life was in danger." He repeats.

"It's been in danger before. Has been practically every minute since I've known you."

"I couldn't lose you."

"I lost you."

A pause.

"It was…" Sherlock begins.

"Please God don't say 'necessary' again."

"It's the truth."

"So without Molly you couldn't have..."

"I needed someone that he didn't think counted"

"He knew I counted." John realises.

"Who do you think he was talking about when he promised to burn out my heart?"

"So he knew I counted. But I didn't"

"You've never professed to be particularly clever." There is a smirk in Sherlock's tone.

"Thanks for that."

"You're going through my things." Abruptly Sherlock changes the subject, looking away from John and instead surveying the room; the books, the papers, the notes. Practically obscuring Mrs Hudson's nice wood floor.

"Yes, your papers."

"Why?" It's Sherlock's version of a time out. Like John's tea.

"I'm not sure. I thought, perhaps, I'd write them up. Some sort of book. Stories. Like the blog."

"But they're old cases."

"You were an old case. You were dead."

"Why would people want to read about those?"

"They want to read about you."

"And why would they want to do that?"

"You're interesting"

"No I'm not."

"If nothing else it's interesting how you can believe that committing suicide is a valid way of solving a case." John can't help himself circling back to the topic at hand.

"It was the only way to solve the case."

"The case of saving my life?"

"The case of you."

"You are nowhere close to solving the case of me."

"What's why you're so interesting." Sherlock references himself.

"Interesting enough to pass the time."

"Petulance doesn't suit you."

"Emotion doesn't suit you."

"That's why I try to avoid it."

"You just told me you loved me."

"I failed." A pause "At avoiding emotion. I always have where you are concerned."

"Oh."

"That's why you're interesting."

"I'm normal."

"You're not."

"No, I'm very normal. Just stay alive. I'll be happy."

"Tell you how I feel." Sherlock suggests.

"Not all the time. Just the odd word. Now and then."

"I thought I made myself clear."

"You never make yourself clear."

"I've never…" Sherlock pauses, feeling his way "Never shared my life like this before. I thought that said enough. I didn't think words were necessary."

"Actions speak louder and all that...?" John supplies.

"Yes."

"Like jumping off a building?"

"Oh."

"Yes." John pauses "It doesn't matter what you think your actions said up until that point. That pretty much negated everything that went before it."

"I'm starting to see that now."

"Thank you." John is grateful for the breakthrough.

"But it didn't matter either way." Sherlock takes three seconds to rescind it. John blinks in surprise. "If I'd told you. All this. It would still have had to happen."

"Ok. But it might have made things easier. Since."

"Are you sure of that?"

"Not in the slightest."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

"You told me it's been hard." Sherlock's voice.

They've been sitting in silence for some time. John's energy is ebbing. The buzz of adrenaline created on the sudden appearance of a corpse long subsided in his veins.

"Yes."

"Explain."

"Did you think it would be easy?" John asks. Quietly.

"I'm not sure I thought that far ahead."

"No, I'm not sure you did."

"You left Baker Street?" Sherlock asks.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I couldn't handle it."

"Handle what?"

"The memories. Of you. Here." John pauses. "I kept expecting you to walk through the door."

"I did."

"Took you long enough."

They both manage a smile at that. Short. Surprising.

"You moved my chair?" Sherlock asks.

"I got fed up of looking at it." John tries for light. Fails a little.

"More space for papers." Sherlock surmises, surveying the state of the room.

"Yes. I may have let the place go a bit."

"Mrs Hudson isn't looking after you."

"She's not the housekeeper,"

"So she keeps telling us."

"Kept."

"Kept telling us."

"She's with her sister."

"I know."

"You knew."

"I did."

"Thought it best to let me shout at you with as few people as possible around to hear?"

"Yes."

"She doesn't know." John remembers,

"No, I told you that."

"You're going to have to tell her."

"I'm going to have to tell everyone. Eventually"

"She's not going to be happy with you."

"Very likely not." Sherlock confirms.

"You can predict that now?"

"Yes."

"You're learning."

"There is still a certain margin of error. People aren't as uncomplicated as I used to think."

"You predicted my shouting."

"But not the effect on the crockery."

Sherlock nudges a piece of plate with the toe of his shoe. John finds himself smiling. How long ago was it that he'd broken that?

A long sigh. John sits back on his chair, resting his head back against familiar cushions. Blinking his eyes against the heaviness in his lids.

"You're alive Sherlock." He says finally.

"Oh dear, have we looped back to that again?"

His tone is so familiarly bored that John feels like laughing.

"Yes." He confirms "And we may just continue to do so until I believe it."

"You don't believe it?"

"I'm still not certain you're not just a figment of my insane imagination."

"Nothing I can say will confirm that."

"I wanted to believe this would happen."

"You asked me." Sherlock states.

"You heard that. At your grave. You thought I was talking to you."

"You were talking to your insane imagination?"

"Something like that." John pauses. "I've imagined this."

"You have?"

"Yes, quite a few times."

"Is it going like you'd imagined?"

"Not even close."

"Well that must be how you know you're not imagining this."

"You're unpredictable." John says,

"As are you."

"Except for the shouting."

"Well quite,"

"I haven't even hit you yet." There's pride in John's tone.

"No. You took it out on the mug."

"Stop talking about the crockery."

"Mrs Hudson won't be happy with you."

"For the mug?"

"And the plates." Sherlock confirms.

"I'll distract her with other things. Like dead flatmates."

"Good idea John, you can tell her."

"You're not getting out of it that easily."

A pause. They've fallen back into their easy banter.

"So what now?" Sherlock asks.

"You haven't told me how you tracked down the others."

"The others?"

"Moriarty's others."

"The usual way: clues, deductions, some help from Mycroft."

"You wouldn't usually admit that."

"That I got help from Mycroft? No. Perhaps it wasn't quite the usual way"

"They've been arrested?"

"In the most part. Yes."

"Nothing in the papers."

"It was handled quietly."

"Mycroft." John confirms.

"Yes."

"So you're back."

"I'm back."

"You're alive."

"I'm alive."

"Where the hell do we go from here?" John asks.

A beat.

"You could let me kiss you." Sherlock replies.

"You could let me hit you." John counters.

"Do you want to?"

"I'm not sure."

Sherlock stands, finally. Unfolding himself from the sofa, stepping forward. Three feet. Two feet. One. John looks up at him as Sherlock offers him his hand. John takes it slowly, aware it is the first time they've touched since… well since tonight. This night.

Sherlock draws him up, to his feet. Hands pressed together, their one point of contact.

"You were warm." John says finally, he's watching their linked hands.

"I was?" Sherlock isn't following.

"On the pavement. With the blood. The people that wouldn't let me touch you."

"But you did."

"What?"

"Touch me."

"Barely."

"You checked my pulse."

"And you were warm." John affirms, fingers moving slightly, tracing patterns on that tiny patch of Sherlock he is currently clinging to. Remembering.

"That's impossible."

"I thought you'd say that."

"It was just what…" Sherlock starts.

"What my mind thought I should be feeling."

"Correct."

"My mind isn't usually very good at telling me what I should be feeling."

"What are you feeling now?" Sherlock asks, voice a low rumble. Close. John has to look back into his face and finds himself caught in that stare.

"I'm not sure." John replies, but is aware that the words have stopped meaning anything. He's no longer concerned with the sounds from his mouth, only the past remembered image of the person in front of him. A dark shirt: open at the collar, dark curls, pale eyes flashing in the streetlamp glow of the London night.

Sherlock.

One word.

Reaching down to kiss him.

The jumble of emotions that flood him as their mouths first find each other. The alien familiarity of Sherlock's lips: warm and smooth and soft. The heady scent of his skin. Just him, just you.

At first they are tentative, slow, an air of disbelief in their actions. John is still ensuring that this figure is in fact in the room with him: solid and real and not likely to suddenly disappear in a flamboyant puff of smoke. But it doesn't take long for the tentative to give way to the desperate. Sherlock's big hands on the back of John's neck, John's fingers clutching into dark curls, mouths pressed so close and so hard he can taste the rust of blood on his lips. John has the sense that this is the taste of the words they have said. That he will find them all here on these soft lips, crashing against his with such force they seem to draw the breath from his lungs, the words from his mind.

Why did they waste so much time talking?

John's hands are on the other man's clothes now. Fingers tearing at a dark shirt, clinging at the smooth skin it reveals as he wrings it from his body. Sherlock is no less idle, attempting to pull the hem of John's t-shirt over his head without breaking their bruising kiss. Their breath is short, hands roaming, cotton and denim and fingers and tongues. Of lost moments and longing and frustration and pain.

The memories seem to be crowding into the room around them: _If you'll be needing two bedrooms.__It's a drugs bust. Bored. Did you just talk to him for a really long time? Heroes don't exist. Is it nice not being me? No one could be such an annoying dick all of the time._ John has that feeling again of viewing the scene as if circling around it. The entwined figures of their bodies in the centre of the room, surrounded by ghosts. The books and the papers and the notes and the secrets. Touching and grabbing and holding and hurting.

Sherlock moans.

It's a sound from a dream. The kind of dream that John wouldn't admit to having.

They fall back onto the sofa, Sherlock above him and around him and beneath him. Sherlock's clever fingers on his body. His mouth at his ear.

"Is this now?" Sherlock asks in a low breath.

John struggles to surface from the sensation. Fails to form coherent thought.

"What?"

"Or then?" Sherlock asks again.

"This isn't any time to be existential." John states as Sherlock's hand moves with confident strokes.

"Is it '_now and then_'?" Sherlock asks "The time? For the odd word."

"What are you talking about?" John asks in a groan. Fingers finding every patch of his skin he can reach, touching, grabbing, the memories.

"I should tell you how I feel."

"Oh," John gasps "Now and then." He repeats in understanding.

"Though actions speak louder…" Sherlock lowers his voice and clutches. John moans.

"Yes," John's breath is heavy.

Sherlock slows, leaning down to run the tip of his tongue across the soft inside of John's ear:

"John, I…"

"I know." John cuts him off.

"But I…"

"You're alive."

"I am,"

"You came back."

"I did," They continue to move, to touch, to stroke, to connect.

"Don't ever die on me again Sherlock."

"I can't promise that.

"Just…"

"What?" Sherlock's voice is a breath. Present and alive.

"Lie,"

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Ok then, I won't."

"Won't what?"

"Die on you. Again."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

"Ok," John's mouth is a breath away from his. "Now stop talking."

"Gladly".

Thanks for all the support so far guys! It means a lot to me that you're following this little fic of mine!

Please continue to let me know what you think on here, or you can find me and more of my insane babblings on my tumbr blog under Qalets.

Chapters 6-8 (yes, that's one more than originally planned) will be updated soon.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

John awakes to the dishwater sunshine of a north London morning falling across his pillow.

He stirs slowly, allowing the conscious reality of that light to sink in. He hadn't drawn the curtains last night. He had been distracted.

It feels late.

Really, if he thinks about it, he has no idea what time they finally made it up to this room. Rousing themselves from the sofa in a jumble of limbs and attempting the long stumble upstairs; full of words and kisses and yawns.

They'd been talking for hours. God knows how many.

He lies still for a moment, listening to the noises of Baker Street below him: the traffic washing by, footsteps, the floating sound of voices stirring up from the café below. He smiles. The world is still going on untouched outside. People are still laughing and drinking and talking and working. Despite the fact that Sherlock fell, and that he returned.

He returned.

It strikes John then that he should probably have had some kind of powerful epiphany as he pulled himself from unconsciousness those few minutes before. Perhaps he should have been painfully unaware, ready to face another faceless day without Sherlock in it. Until realisation dawned and he remembered: remembered the figure in the doorway, John's own name spoken in the voice of a memory, the shouts and the accusations. The smiles and the touches and the words. So many words. More than John feels he's said in a lifetime.

Tea, John thinks. As he does most mornings. Those without Sherlock in them. Those with.

Tea will rouse him.

He shutters his eyes open slowly, focusing properly on a morning filled with sunlight not much brighter than the artificial glow of the night before. He is not surprised to find the bed beside him empty; he was more surprised that Sherlock had agreed to come to bed at all. Perhaps Sherlock had grown accustomed to sleep while he had been away, John thinks, before stopping himself. Away. Now even he was doing it: Perhaps Sherlock had grown accustomed to sleep while he had been dead.

Somehow the logistics of that sentence seem a little confused.

Covers. Floor. John pulls himself from the warmth of the sheets, finding a discarded pair of pyjama trousers and a t-shirt on the back of the chair beside the bed. He pulls them on as he wanders from the room. His bare feet descending the stairs.

He remembers shuffling up them, some indeterminable time before. Sherlock's voice:

"You do realise that my bedroom is infinitely closer John?" His tone is low, but obvious. Always obvious.

"You mean the downstairs bedroom."

"Is it not mine any longer?"

"You were dead." John states bluntly. The staircase is short; they've reached the top already, stepping shoulder to shoulder across the threshold of his room.

"I remember."

"Technically you were no longer using it…"

"Not technically or physically." Sherlock corrects as he shuffles himself under John's duvet, lying on his back and reaching for John as he slides in beside him.

"Right." John settles in close.

"So?" Sherlock asks, his warm living weight pressed all along John's side. They're both looking upward, studying the grey distance of John's ceiling.

"So?"

"Is there a point to this John?"

"Mrs Hudson." John starts, ineloquently "Her sister. She moved house. Out to the country."

"Oh," Sherlock has drawn the conclusions before John has even finished the prologue.

"Lots of bedrooms." John continues,

"She needed a bed." Sherlock offers.

"Yes."

"She asked Mrs Hudson if she could spare one." Sherlock is telling the story now.

"Yes, "

"Which she obviously could."

"Well, yes."

"Naturally she said she'd ask you, and when she did..."

"I said fine."

"It's just a bed."

"Exactly."

"That's when you started going through my papers."

"Yes," John pauses, wondering if there will ever be a time when he isn't surprised by the weight of the things Sherlock knows "How did you…?"

"You never used to go in there," Sherlock says slowly, speaking quietly upward at the ceiling in the darkness "Not at first. After you'd moved back. The curtains were never drawn nor the light ever on, not any time of the day or night. Oh at some point you must have been in there: to move the chair, it's not been in its place in the sitting room for some time, it's obvious by the way you move around the room, you're used to its absence. But then you closed the door. You worked. Not quite to the same desperate level you did when you were in Islington, but still long hours. Until something made you go back in there. Obvious. Removal men. Either they were moving something in or they were moving something out. They opened the door and you found my papers. You've barely left the flat a day since."

"Amazing." John wonders aloud,

"Just observation." Sherlock counters.

"And just how long did you spend outside watching whether or not I switched on a light?" John's tone is teasing.

Sherlock lets out a small huff of annoyance beside him, and John feels himself smirking.

But the smile doesn't take long to fade.

"You were so close Sherlock."

"Yes."

"You didn't think to just knock on the door?"

"Often."

"You were there. You saw the removal men."

"Yes."

"We had a right job trying to get that thing down the stairs."

"I saw,"

"Didn't help?"

"Naturally I couldn't."

"Did about as much as you would if you were alive."

"If you want to put it like that."

"That's cheating."

"What is?"

"You saw us move the bed – you didn't deduce it."

"It's not cheating, it's observation".

"Wait…"

"Yes?"

"That was…" John starts.

"Yes."

"That was the day I was wearing that awful jumper."

"It was a spectacularly awful jumper John"

"Mrs Hudson made it for me. I had to keep reassuring her I liked it."

"Which you didn't."

"Of course I didn't."

"She liked to see you wear it." Sherlock says.

"She liked to see me look ridiculous in it."

"I liked to see you wear it."

There's a pause. John tilts his face to look over at him, studies his dark profile against the murk of the room.

"You were there that day." John wonders aloud "You saw us."

"Yes," Sherlock's voice is little more than a purr.

"We didn't see you." John pauses, thinking, studying. "How long have you been just on the edge of things?"

"All my life." Sherlock answers matter-of-factly.

Silence.

For the first time that night John is lost for words.

Sherlock breaks the quiet, pulling his arm from between them to slip it around John, pulling him close.

"I forgive you." Sherlock says,

"You do?"

"Yes,"

"For what?" John has to ask.

"For giving away my bed."

"Yes well,"

"Though one disadvantage is that I'm no longer sure whether we can refer to it as a bedroom, whether mine, downstairs or otherwise."

"I suppose not." John finds himself smiling again at his turn of phrase, before a thought strikes him. "Hang on a minute; shouldn't I be the one forgiving you?"

"For what?" Sherlock repeats John's question, all innocence.

"For dying?!" Though the subject matter hasn't changed, their conversation has lost its weight.

"Oh that."

"Yes that."

"Well do you?" Sherlock asks

"What?"

"Forgive me?"

"I guess so."

Sherlock sighs, warm and weighty, "Good."

John comes back to himself in the kitchen. Two mugs for tea on the countertop.

This time he goes ahead and pours water over both teabags.

A smile on his face.

The mugs are heavy in his hands as he carries them through into the sitting room. Through to the books and the papers and the notes of the sitting room. The chaos and the mess.

He's disappointed to find Sherlock absent from within it. He'd expected to find him pouring over John's laptop, or dramatically stretched out on the sofa. Already bored.

Come to think of it, it is a little strange that he's not heard anything from him up to now. No elaborate morning wakeup call in the form of breaking glass in the kitchen or a request for tea when the kettle was switched on. Or even his coat and strange scarf across the sofa where John can remember him leaving them last night.

Which explains it. He must be out. A dead man walking.

Of course Sherlock doesn't understand the importance of the morning after. The morning after the resurrection. The reassurances and words the touches: the confirmation that Sherlock is in fact no longer past tense, but present. That it wasn't all some strange stirring of John's insane imagination. It wasn't.

Was it?

John casts around the room. Looking much as it did the day before. Where are Sherlock's things? He had arrived last night seemingly with just the clothes on his back. No bag. No evidence to say he was moving back in. Perhaps he has gone to fetch them.

He didn't leave a note.

_This is my note._

Why would he leave a note? He never had done before.

His phone.

Finding he is still holding the mugs John sets them down amid the papers on the table, leaving his hands free to automatically pat at the non-existent pockets on his hastily constructed outfit. He realises the futility quickly, leaning to sift through the papers instead. He finds it beneath a stack of memories.

No new messages.

The blank home screen stares back at him mutely and John realises how long it's been seen he's seen Sherlock's name there. Since it was commonplace to do so. Text after text: explaining a case, informing him they were out of milk, asking John to follow him.

Did he really think it would be that easy?

His insane flatmate comes back from the dead. Appears on the doorstep and lets himself casually back into the flat and back into John's life. They talk. They talk for hours. They dissect and disassemble and explain and articulate and confuse and connect. They kiss. They touch. They moan.

He leaves.

Did all that really happen?

Perhaps.

Perhaps it was a dream.

Perhaps he fell asleep. _Working so hard. All these papers: _The memories. The words and the dissections and the explanations and the connections. Text careful, structured; lines following ordered steps of logic, before wild ideas, scribbled haphazardly in margins and pushed up against other text. Perhaps he fell asleep and dreamt of that voice. Saying his name.

But they had spoken. All those words. That voice saying more than just John's name, saying all the things they never had.

Would Sherlock have really said those things to him?

Would he ever…? Could he ever…?

John's stomach begins to roll.

Of course it happened. He couldn't make up words like that. Back and forth; explaining and accusing and shouting for God's sake.

But there was no one else here to hear that.

No one but a dead man.

Mrs Hudson was with her sister. _Thought it best to let me shout at you with as few people as possible around to hear?_ John had said that. Or had he? Had he just dreamt it?

He had imagined it before. Had told Sherlock that.

_Is it going like you'd imagined? _

But.

He couldn't have. Could he?

He could never have imagined it all. He could never have begun to. Begun to hope…

A noise downstairs.

Key in the lock, front door swinging open. Feet on the hallway floor.

This time John doesn't pause, mug in hand. Doesn't glance around at the room, aware of the state of it. This time he's on his feet and racing to the doorway. Panic rushing him. The stirrings of his insane imagination.

Sherlock.

His name is unspoken on John's lips as he dashes across the landing and onto the staircase. Looking down.

Mrs Hudson.

She'd been with her sister for a few days.

She's leaving her bags and heading straight upstairs to tell him she's back.

The noise he makes on the stairs makes her look up, surprise on her face fading into that sing song smile.

"It's only me," She says, brightly.

John can only gape back at her in surprise.

She smiles in response, seemingly unaware of the fact that he is staring at her as if she were the last person in the world he expected to see standing in the hallway of her own house.

"How _are_ you?" She asks with that motherly concern she does so well.

"Erm," John starts, blinking "F-fine"

"I know. It's a shock," She declares.

An expectant pause.

Something like relief trickles back into John's limbs. He can think of only one shock - she's going to tell him it hasn't all been some kind of bizarre tea-fuelled dream.

"Erm," John repeats, eloquent as always "What is?"

"That I'm back!" Mrs Hudson states, that bright melodic voice. "Back already, I know! So soon!" She's looking away from him to fuss with her bags, "It seems I just can't keep away from the place. Baker Street! Who would have thought? What was it Sherlock said? '_England would fall_'!"

John's head swims with the mention of his name.

"You…?" He starts a question he's not sure he can ask.

"Yes?" Mrs Hudson looks up at him again, arms full of bags now.

"You haven't…"

"What dear?"

"…seen…?"

Her face is a picture of confusion. Innocence. Not the face of a lady who's seen life after death.

John gives up: "Nevermind."

He sighs. What should he think now?

"Oh." Her smile hasn't faded, even in the glow of her confusion. "Well, if you need anything…"

"Yes," John, lost in thought again, looks back at her "Yes, thank you Mrs Hudson."

"No problem dear, I'm sorry if I woke you." She's referring to his pyjamas; John has the strength of mind to look down bashfully at himself.

"Oh, that, no…" John starts,

"Well, if you're sure." She's letting herself into her flat. "You just go back and make yourself some tea now, wake yourself up, you look still lost in a dream"


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

John has turned and retreated back into the flat before he is fully aware that he has moved. His head crowded with thoughts he doesn't particularly know how to begin to address.

Sherlock is not here.

Mrs Hudson has not seen him.

John saw him. Talked to him. After a long day spent pouring over page after page of notes so imbibed with the spirit of him they seem to sing with his presence.

Perhaps John hasn't got the talent for consciousness he previously thought. Could he have fallen asleep? Dreamt? Dreamt of words?

No.

John whirls around, as if the doorway will hold the answers to the questions his mind refuses to stop asking. Sherlock had stood there. In that doorway. All coat and cheekbones and collar. A red scarf. John didn't know Sherlock owned a red scarf.

Why would he make up something like that?

John needs evidence. Evidence that Sherlock had stood there. What had he touched? John casts around wildly, before realising the answers won't be scrawled on the physical.

He closes his eyes. Sees Sherlock standing in the doorway. Moving into the room.

_I'll stand._

Sherlock's voice. He didn't stand forever, perched himself instead on the sofa. The sofa. John's eyes are open again, roaming the cushions in the ridiculous hope of any tell-tale sign that the world's only consulting detective had sat upon it.

But that's hopeless. He tells himself. They would have undone any mark Sherlock had made on it later in the evening. When they had fallen there: an amorous heap of desperate touches. Sherlock's hands on him, his mouth, his tongue. What had he touched? He had touched John.

John heaves in a breath and lets it out slowly.

But this wasn't the only place they had laid.

He turns suddenly and rushes upstairs: feet on the floorboards.

He comes up short in the doorway to the bedroom. His shoulders falling as he surveys the mess: bed unmade, the duvet and pillows in such disarray it's impossible to tell how many figures had slept there. John remembers doing the damage himself: Covers. Floor.

He stares for a moment.

Searching his mind.

Before another thought. This time of Sherlock's foot, reaching out from his perch on the sofa, tapping at a broken shard of plate glinting in the bright dark of the London night.

_Stop talking about the crockery._

The plates.

Did he break them?

If he'd been asleep he could never heard the noise in the hallway downstairs. Could never have stood from his chair and collected the plates from their positions beneath the coffee table. Could never have dropped them dramatically on the appearance of a man who may never really have been standing there.

But this time the evidence seems so damning that he doesn't race to confirm it. John could not have failed to notice the scattered pieces of broken china across the carpet of the sitting room when he stood there previously.

He isn't wearing any shoes.

It's a slow trudge that takes him back down the stairs, to the sitting room: to the books and papers and notes, to Mrs Hudson's nice wood floor and to memories and to death and to rage and to secrets and agreements and experience and things unspoken and broken promises and no broken plates.

_Misdirection John… Seeing what your mind wants you to see._

He has to lower himself onto the edge of the sofa before his knees give out beneath him.

That was what he had wanted to see. He had even asked for it once. Right out loud. Standing beside a gravestone.

Of course he could summon those words. Spoken in a voice he's heard in a dream he won't admit to having.

He's a writer.

_Sentiment._

It was all a dream.

This place, these memories. Had won.

His imagination really was insane.

_Where the hell do we go from here?_


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

A long silence. Minutes tick by. A lifetime. A lifetime unlived.

John feels sofa cushions beneath his tired limbs. He hears the noises of Baker Street below him: the traffic washing by, footsteps, the floating sound of voices. And he sees the ghost of memories, crowding into the room around him: _You're not dead. It was necessary_. _You didn't believe me when I kissed you. Took you long enough. _Memories of a dream.

John looks up at the hairline crack in the corner of the ceiling. Huffs out a long sigh. Drops his hands to his sides.

And then his fingers touch something.

Something alien. Beneath his fingers. Pushed down between the sofa cushions.

Propping his head back up he looks down at it. Pinched there, between finger and thumb.

A red scarf.

John looks at it in disbelief.

His thoughts are sluggish. Uncomprehending.

At exactly the same moment there's a noise downstairs. Key in the lock, front door swinging open. Feet on the hallway floor. Quick. Taking the steps two at a time.

"John,"

And Sherlock bursts through the door.

He is talking.

"John, Mrs Hudson is home."

Sherlock.

All coat and cheekbones and collar. And no scarf.

John still can't believe.

"John," Sherlock says again, "John, Mrs Hudson is home. I should speak with her."

John stares.

"I managed to get by her this time…" Sherlock continues, oblivious "But she's going to realise… I'll need your help." He stops suddenly, looking around "You made tea?"

In one swift motion John is on his feet. Crossing the room and grabbing at that figure in the doorway. The way he should have last night. The way he couldn't. The way he wished he had.

He's desperate and he's gripping, stilling the words on Sherlock's lips. Clutching at that coat and those cheekbones and this collar. Pulling Sherlock's face close to his: a silent desperate portrayal of everything he feels and thinks and thought he knew and wished he didn't and wonders if he must.

Sherlock.

He doesn't resist, momentarily stilled to wordless understanding of John's frantic action, he allows himself to be touched. To be held.

John is drowning in the feeling of holding him. He pulls him down with him, desperate and clinging, so that they both end up on the floor, on their knees amid the mess. John can feel the warmth of that marble face. The blood rushing beneath the surface. Can hold Sherlock's thoughts in his hands and the taste the shape of the words he has said.

But the position John has pulled them into can't be comfortable for Sherlock. He shifts beneath John's touch, that marble moving, limbs finding a more natural position on the floor.

The moment is broken.

John reels back.

And hits him.

There's a sickening noise as knuckles collide with cheekbone.

"What the hell Sherlock!?" And John's shout: the most sickening noise of all.

Sherlock has been knocked off balance, sprawling on his backside on Mrs Hudson's nice wood floor. His long fingers automatically reaching to the juncture of impact.

"What?! What the hell were you…?!" The level of John's anger renders it almost impossible for him to form coherent accusations. "_Were_ you even thinking?!"

Sherlock's mouth moves, whether testing out responses or the effect that the punch has had on his face John can't tell, doesn't care, continues at a shout:

"I've been… I've been half out of my mind. I thought…."

"You thought?"

"I didn't know what to think! You came back from the dead!"

"We know this." Sherlock's voice is calm.

"I didn't know that! I woke up. You weren't here…"

"I was out."

"I know that now! But I couldn't, couldn't find…"

"What John?"

"You weren't here!" John is feeling too much again, his words are choked, breath panting. Desperation and panic and relief and fear, fear he was losing a grip on that thin fibre of reality: "No note. Your _note_! And the café, downstairs, no message. The phone. And Mrs Hudson came home, and she said. She said… And the plates,"

"The plates?"

John hasn't heard him: "The bed, the duvet. Your scarf and…"

"You spoke to Mrs Hudson?" Sherlock seems to be existing outside the nonsense commentary John's mouth is automatically releasing.

"Yes downstairs, she…"

"What did you say?"

"What?!" John's anger is still palpable, not yet drowned in the sea of his confusion "I… Nothing. She. She said I was dreaming."

"Did you think you were dreaming?"

"Yes! Yes, God. What was I supposed to think?"

"That I came back?"

"That you just came back?! Hopped up off the pavement and came back and told me all those things? After I'd imagined it? After I'd wanted it to happen? That you just let yourself back into the flat and we… And we… And then you just… went out?!" John's voice is still a yell.

"Yes."

"But…" John's mouth hangs opens for a second. "You're an idiot Sherlock! You have no idea!"

"I..."

"You just don't. Don't think! Don't know. Don't think or do anything except for yourself!"

"I cleared up the plates."

"What?!" John rages.

"You asked me to. Last night."

"I did?" Disbelief in John's words,

"Yes. After they cut... You told me to clear them up"

A pause.

John closes his eyes. Remembers.

Remembers lying a tangled heap on the sofa, sated. Sherlock suddenly beginning to writhe, attempting to contort his naked body half trapped beneath John and peer at the sole of his own foot.

"I think I cut myself." Sherlock's voice.

"Hm," John is full of smooth sleep, not words.

"On the crockery,"

"Hm?"

"You broke the plates." Sherlock accuses.

"I remember."

"They're a health hazard."

"Yes." John sighs "You should clear them up." He barely registers what he's saying, too lost in the glow. The feel of a lithe body still stretched out beneath him: the touch and the smell and the taste.

"You broke them." Sherlock accuses again.

"You made me…" John says on the exhale.

"I didn't."

"I was surprised."

"Which is directly proportional to the destruction of our tableware?"

"Yes." It's a testament to the lethargy in John's body that he is unable to summon enough enthusiasm to question Sherlock's train of thought.

"Hm." Sherlock's quiet affirmation.

"We should go to bed." John suggests, the thought of stretching this beautiful figure out in a more comfortable location suddenly appealing to him.

"Yes." Sherlock's quick to agree, he must really be uncomfortable.

There's a pause as they contemplate each other before John shifts, pushing himself to his feet carefully and reaching out to help Sherlock up.

"Can you make it across the room without doing any more damage?" John asks with a smile, he's rewarded with the narrowing of steel blue eyes:

"You do realise that my bedroom is infinitely closer John?"

John comes back to the present. Sherlock staring at him. He realises that his anger has ebbed with the memory.

"You cleared up the plates." John says in disbelief. His words at a normal volume now.

"Yes."

"You chose this moment to decide to do housework?"

"It seems so."

"I thought..."

"You thought what?"

"I thought…" John starts again.

Then:

"John!" Mrs Hudson's voice from the stairs. They stare at each other in surprise.

"John!" She repeats. That motherly concern at a desperate pitch "John, I heard shouting! Are you? Are you alright?"

She bursts through the door.

And stops.

Two figures blink up at her from the floor. Surrounded by books and papers and notes: the debris of untold weeks of hermit living and the scattered chaos of a night locked in dissections and explanations and confusions and connections.

For a long moment all three simply stare.

Before Mrs Hudson lets out a small whimper, leaning back against the doorframe behind her, her hand at her mouth as if to catch it.

"Oh boys," She says, her voice shaking, eyes casting about finally: "The mess you've made."

* * *

_So that's it. I hope you don't hate me too much for chapters 6 & 7, or 8 for that matter, but they were questions I really enjoyed creating._

_Thank you so much for all the support!_

_Please let me know what you think: if you liked it, or hated it or feel you must shout at me for anything I've included or not included. Would anyone be interested in me continuing? If so, what would you like to see?_

_As usual, if you're interested in keeping up to date with other bits and pieces I'll be uploading, including a possible new idea I have at the drawing board stage, I keep everything updated on my tumblr blog, find me under Qalets. Love! x_


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